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Molecular Clouds at the Reionization Epoch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2011

M. Röllig ,
R. Simon ,
V. Ossenkopf ,
J. Stutzki ,
A. Sternberg ,
A. Dalgarno ,
Y. Pei  and
E. Herbst
A. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Israël
A. Dalgarno
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge
Y. Pei
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Ohio State University, USA
E. Herbst
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Ohio State University, USA
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Abstract

We show that for ionization-driven chemistry in molecular clouds with very sub-solar (but non-vanishing) metallicities, OH replaces CO as the most abundant molecule containing at least one heavy element. Old Population-II stars, with observed metallicities ≲10-3times solar, may have formed in such OH-dominated star-forming clouds, shortly after the heavy elements were first produced at the epoch of reionization in the early Universe.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Astronomical Society Publications Series , Volume 52: Conditions and Impact of Star Formation , 2011 , pp. 43 - 46
Copyright
© EAS, EDP Sciences 2011

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